


All That's Left

by Kaoru_chibimaster



Series: FF7 Omegaverse Week [6]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Canon Compliant, Gen, Minor Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife, a/b/o presentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:00:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24575698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaoru_chibimaster/pseuds/Kaoru_chibimaster
Summary: Presentation was such a big day for most. For Tifa, it was…unexpected.
Series: FF7 Omegaverse Week [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1769554
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21
Collections: ff7omegaverseweek





	All That's Left

**Author's Note:**

> Agh, I wanted to do more with this but I didn't have the time to really dig in. Anyway, for free day I wanted to explore a character presenting (for anyone who doesn't know, it's the a/b/o version of puberty where people learn what their secondary gender is). 
> 
> Also the cloti is very minor. More mentioned than in your face.

She presented the week after Cloud had left for Midgar.

And it was _embarrassing_.

‘Oh, it’s not so bad’ her dad had told her.

‘No one will take you any less seriously’ her new teacher had told her.

‘At least you won’t have to worry about heat/rut’ the other kids bemoaned with overdramatic rolls of their eyes.

Tifa had _wanted_ that. She wanted _something_ to prove herself with; something to overcome. Something to claim for herself.

Cloud had presented as an omega the year prior, and she’d thought that it’d be _so cool_ if she turned out to be an alpha. How better to prove herself than to protect the village’s future SOLDIER? Maybe when he fulfilled his promise to Tifa, she’d return the favor.

Maybe he’d like her back…

In the end, it hadn’t mattered. Her presentation had come and gone with the onset of cramps and bloody underwear. No weeklong heat or rut to have to hide away from the rest of the village with. No burst of scents and new instincts to marvel over. Her sense of smell was as mundane as it ever was: enough to recognize individual scents but not enough to be swayed by them. Her instincts had remained the same as they’d always been: centered around herself and her needs. She never had to focus on anyone unless she wanted to. There was no innate desire to.

How boring.

The omega kids who’d presented had tried to cheer her up. Tell her vapid things like how alphas wouldn’t harass her, and how no one would ever look down on her or judge her life choices by how complicit she was, and how she could have kids whenever she wanted instead of having to wait for a mating cycle to come around, but she could see the awkwardness in their eyes. Hear it in their voices. And the alpha kids who’d presented didn’t even bother her much anymore. To them, she was either to be an equal or someone to chase after, and if she was neither then they no longer cared.

None of them expected her not to be one of them.

Granted, it didn’t mean she was alone; far from it. Betas made up the majority of the world’s population anyway. But that, in Tifa’s eyes, was what made presenting as an alpha or omega so special. You were rarer, you were more interesting, you were noticed.

Tifa was used to being noticed, having been surrounded by friends. She was used to being someone the other kids looked up to. Now the only ones that stuck around were the other betas and the kids who hadn’t presented yet.

It meant she lost a lot of friends.

Her dad told her they’d grow out of it in time. Right now they were discovering themselves and exploring the effects puberty had on their bodies, and they wanted to be around others like them. They wanted to compare and contrast, they wanted to discuss. They couldn’t get that sort of interaction out of Tifa, so they’d avoid her for now. ‘Eventually though’, he’d said. Eventually they’d realize that presenting as an alpha or omega was nothing special either and they’d value true friendship more than their newfound cliques. Her dad had been an alpha, after all, and he spoke of his own presentation when Tifa had been coming of age. Apparently it was hellish.

Her mom had never spoken of her presentation before she…

But then, she’d been a beta too. It had to have been as mundane as Tifa’s.

In the end though, no amount of reasoning with herself or comparing her experience to others’ could mask how she was really feeling. It felt lonely, losing friends to their own presentations. It was lonely losing her mom, the only beta she really had to look up to. She never bothered with the other kids’ parents so she couldn’t feel comfortable discussing this with them. Her dad wasn’t much help, no matter how much he tried. He just didn’t _understand_. Cloud’s mom had married a beta, but any memories she had of him to share were useless. Male betas didn’t go through the same bodily changes female betas did. And Mrs. Claudia herself was an omega.

Tifa didn’t want memories. She just wanted…

She didn’t know _what_ she wanted anymore. But it wasn’t this.

It’d take years to come to terms with _this_.

-o-

Tifa had learned, years later when she had come into herself and long accepted what and who she was, just how right her father had been. Being a beta never really mattered. Being an alpha, an omega…none of it. It was simply a part of people’s lives, and they went about their business regardless.

It was nice to know that it hadn’t mattered to Cloud either when they met again. He’d never commented, never given her that odd look that the kids back home used to, never judged her. His treatment of her rekindled a fondness she had started to bury under her own shame at her presentation. A fondness that she now knew wasn’t completely hopeless, not to a man who saw past gender and judged people for their inner worth. Well…that and their cash, but even then he never expected more out of Tifa than she was willing to give. He only held himself to his specific standards, and he handled his own status with a blasé indifference, only having ever mentioned his heat once in Tifa’s presence, and that was to bitch about how it put him out of work for a week.

She couldn’t help bursting into laughter at that. Leave it to Cloud to see heat as a nuisance to his work.

Besides, Tifa was long past the point where she yearned for that sort of thing. It’d been childish and she’d never really understood what sort of burden she’d been wishing on herself. To be put out of commission for a week every six months just to suffer through heat flashes and needy aches in her loins, only in hope that maybe she’d find someone to roll around mindlessly in the hay with for a few days with the threat of either getting pregnant or getting someone else pregnant hanging over her head, would’ve not only put a strain on her body, but on her bar and her business with AVALANCHE and possibly her entire life.

It was easier to reconcile with herself after she’d put some thought into it. Being a beta was mundane, sure, but considering everything going on around her, “mundane” was a much-needed constant.

Besides, here in Seventh Heaven with Barret and Marlene, Jessie, Biggs and Wedge, Cloud… All different people from different backgrounds come together for a good cause. People who’d become her friends, her family…

She didn’t feel so lonely anymore.


End file.
